Among All These Tundras, a title taken from the poem ‘My Home Is in My Heart’ by famed Sámi writer Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, features contemporary art by Indigenous artists from around the circumpolar world. Together, their works politically and poetically express current Arctic concerns towards land, language, sovereignty and resurgence. Artists from throughout the circumpolar north share kinship with each other and their ancestors, love for their homelands, and respect for the land and its inhabitants. Yet they also share histories of colonialism and experience its ongoing legacies and are united in their desire to protect northern ecologies, languages, peoples and knowledge from the nefarious effects of climate change, encroaching industry and competition. These resistance efforts do not merely express, they give shape to a collective ecology of care, a “decolonial love” (in the words of Leanne Simpson and others) that is both generous and generative. These works invite viewers to contemplate relationships between textual and embodied Indigenous knowledges, innovation and sustainability, humour and resilience, and our collective responsibility to northern life and land.
Featuring work by asinnajaq, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Carola Grahn, Marja Helander, Kablusiak, Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge, Barry Pottle, Inuuteq Storch, Couzyn van Heuvelen and Allison Akootchook Warden
Curated by Heather Igloliorte, Amy Prouty and Charissa von Harringa